Stay-at-home mom Shauna Hall has stared down breast cancer. She fought bravely and survived.
But she’ll be the first to admit that she has the “worst luck.”
“I’m serious, if it can happen it will almost always happen to me.”
Shauna and her son had pulled into the local Chick-fil-A in Stafford, Va., and hopped out of the van when she managed to drop her phone. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the phone took a nasty bounce.
It landed smack dab in the storm drain next to her van.
“My iPhone that we just paid off and that I had just put a brand new Otterbox on two days before. After a moment of losing my freakin mind, I lay on the ground, placing my head best I can between my van and the drain, looking into the dark abyss to see if by any chance it has landed somewhere I can reach. Of course it has not. In disbelief and as I am about to puke and cry, I go in and ask for a manager.”
The Chick-fil-A manager was friendly but at a complete loss as to how to help. Enter Seth Ratliff, the restaurant’s digital marketing director.
Seth offered to find a grab-stick and a mirror to see if he could help retrieve the phone. Armed with these tools, he followed Shauna outside to the storm drain.
“Without hesitation, and in his uniform, he lays on the ground and attempts to locate the phone. He can’t see it either and we both realize the worst. It has in fact fallen dead smack in the middle, down the actual drainage hole.”
Distraught over what’s happened to her phone but realizing her son is hungry, they returned inside the restaurant. Seth walked up to their table and explained that he refunded her mobile dine-in order and that their food would be ready soon.
He felt so bad about what happened.
“Thanking him I tell him he didn’t have to do that, but he tells me it was no problem as I’m clearly already having a bad day. He then offers his personal phone for me to use if I want to call anyone but I know no numbers by heart. He then joins us at the booth and calls the county trying to get some help. They hang up on him but we get the idea to go back out and call my phone to see if we can hear it (fearing we won’t as the hole is most definitely full of water because of course we are in the middle of a drought but had a full day of rain yesterday).”
But as fate would have it, Shauna and Seth realized that the manhole cover sitting atop the drain wasn’t actually bolted in place. They decided to lift it but it was so darn heavy that Seth bore the brunt of the weight and ended up cutting his finger.
Seth went back into the restaurant to clean and bandage the wound, then determinedly returned to the storm drain. He finished removing the cover and they then spied her phone at the very bottom.
“After trying to reach it with his grab-stick then dropping his stick, he tells me it’s a manhole for a reason and he is going down.”
In complete shock, Shauna watched as Seth lowered herself into the narrow hole and managed to grasp ahold of her phone, which is miraculously neither wet or broken.
“I was so thankful I freaking hugged him. Not only did he slice his finger and was filthy from laying on the ground and climbing in the hole, I find out he had actually just gotten off shift and was still willing to help me.”
After that stressful ordeal, Shauna now wholeheartedly claims Seth as her “hero and favorite Chick-fil-A employee.”
“As he was about to climb out of the hole he asked me to snap a picture so he could show his girlfriend what he did at work today.”
More than 46,000 people responded to Shauna’s incredulous post about Seth the stranger diving into a storm drain just to retrieve her phone.
Seth modestly denies all attention he’s received so far and thanks everyone for their kind words.
“It is amazing to see how far-reaching and widespread the story has become. I hope it encourages others to look for ways to spread God’s love and bless others, doing so selflessly and without hesitation … we all have opportunities to serve daily. Compassion and empathy took control in this scenario where I happened to be at the right place at the right time to help, but we are all presented with more of these situations than we realize. Big or small, look for ways to serve. Look for ways to love. Be a blessing to someone today.”
What a selfless thing Seth did for this stranger! We need more people like him in this world.
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